My Science School

Deaf and dumb people many not be able to hear or speak, but that does not mean that they cannot communicate with others. Instead of talking as we do, they talk with their fingers and hands. We can also say that they communicate through a visual language. There are two kinds of deaf and dumb sign language. One method uses one hand, the other uses both hands. Different finger positions stand for different letters of the alphabet, and words are spelt out one letter at a time.Signs used by the deaf and dumb also represent ideas. Many signs use a visual image to convey an idea. For example, mimicking a pair of horns means a deer, or a trunk means an elephant.Sometimes, deaf and dumb people use facial expressions and other gestures in order to communicate faster. Nowadays, there are many techniques that teach deaf people to speak like we do. They also learn to read lips so that they can understand.

The first printed books looked very much like the manuscript books of earlier times. The printers modeled their type on handwriting, and even added decorations by hand.The Diamond Sutra, which is a Buddhist prayer on a scroll, made in China, is thought to be the oldest complete printed book. It was printed with woodblocks, and looks very much like a Chinese manuscript scroll.  The world’s first printed Bible is the Gutenberg Bible, which has 42 lines of text on a page. Gutenberg wanted his printed Bible to look just like a manuscript Bible, and modelled his type on German script. The decorations around the margins and the headings at the top of the page were done by hand after the book was printed and before it was bound.

Our voice is an important part of our personality, which often identifies and characterizes us. An organ called the larynx, which is especially adapted to act as a vibrator, creates the sound of our voice. The vibrating vocal cords in the larynx, stretched and positioned by specific muscles, protrude from its lateral walls towards the centre of the glottis. During normal breathing, the folds in the vocal cords remain open to allow air to pass through easily. During speech, the folds close together so that the passage of air between these will cause vibration. Do you know that the pitch of vibration in your vocal cords determines the quality and tone of your voice? This, in turn is determined by the degree of stretch of the folds, mass of the edges of the folds, and how tightly the folds are approximated to each other. Since these three aspects vary from person to person, there are differences in people's voices.A person can, however, voluntarily change the sound of his or her voice by changing the resonating qualities of the different stretchers of resonators like mouth, nose, and even the chest cavity. This is an art that has been perfected by actors, mimics, and ventriloquists

 In 1901, a remarkable inventor and scientist called Nicolas Tesla dreamt of communicating with inhabitants of other planets. He even believed that it would be possible to send a signal from Earth to Mars with the same accuracy as messages were being sent by wire from New York to Philadelphia.MIT researchers have taken a step towards Mr. Tesla's dream by developing a tiny light detector that may allow for super-fast broadband communications over interplanetary distances.In another instance, a pioneering demonstration of communications between NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover Spirit and the European Space Agency (ESA) Mars Express orbiter succeeded. On February 6, while the Mars Express was flying over the area Spirit was examining, the Orbiter transferred commands from to Earth to the Rover and relayed data from the robotic Explorer back to earth.As far as communicating with creatures on other planets is concerned, we really do not know yet whether life exists in space. Yet, when the space probe Pioneer 10 was launched in 1972, it carried a picture greeting for any intelligent beings that might find it. A plaque on board the Pioneer 10, showed a picture of a man and woman and the sun as the centre of our civilization with 14 radiating lines emitting from it. It also depicted the symbol for the hydrogen atom which is called 'the universal clock', and our solar system, with the route of Pioneer marked on it.We do not know whether our message to another planet was ever seen by anyone ...but we haven't got a reply yet to our greeting!

We know that animals can communicate with each other. They do so through their body language, facial expressions, eye movements and sounds. Dolphins communicate through whistles and squeaks that form of a language their own. When dogs bark or a cat meows, it is telling another dog or cats something...Only we cannot understand what it is. Animals can also understand our language to some extent. It you train a dog properly; it will sit when you say 'Sit' and fetch a stick that you throw when you say 'fetch'. Dolphins in fact can understand quite complex commands.Unfortunately, we have not yet mastered the art of communicating with other species on this planet. Some people seem to intuitively know what an animal is trying to communicate, but for the most part we do not have a clue about what animals are thinking. We may realize from their body language that they are going to attack, or that they are happy, but we cannot understand the sounds they make...yet! Maybe, in the future, we will develop computers that will be able decipher their grunts and growls, squeaks and whistles...and maybe we will learn to 

The thud of the newspaper falling on your doorstep is a familiar sound every morning. But soon it may become a thing of the past. In the future, you may be printing your newspaper at home!There is no doubt that books and newspapers will change considerably in the future. News printers will become so common that each family may have a new printer at home. This news printer will not only print the newspaper every morning, but will also send messages from one home to another. So, in the future, the sight of a newspaper boy, cycling through rain and storm to bring your family its morning paper, will be only a fond memory

Haven't you often wondered whether there was some form of intelligent life living in the stars? Scientists have been trying to solve this puzzle for many years. There are organizations like NASA and SETI that are focusing their technology and research on detecting new planets and solar systems that are suitable for human life.Some people believe that life occurred on earth by accident, and that the random events that caused it will never occur again. According to them, there are no chances of life being found on other planets. Others argue that life evolves naturally under the right conditions, and that if these conditions occur on another planet, life can exist there too.

While working as a radio astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, Dr. Frank Drake worked out an approach to find out the possibility of other civilizations that may exist in our galaxy. The Drake Equation, as it has become known, was first presented by Drake in 1961. It lists specific factors thought to play a role in the development of civilizations. From these factors, the Drake equation tries to estimate the number of planets that exist with intelligent forms of life.The Drake equation is quite a difficult                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        equation to solve. So, maybe when you are older, we will give you the equation, and let you try to solve it

                                                                                                                                                                                       

Ubik represents one of the most advanced technologies we have seen. It is a sleek, futuristic phone that is about 3 inches square. You can use it to access your phone, e-mail, and instant messaging. You can also use it to play games, surf the web, share photos and hear music. Ubik has a flexible, borderless and foldable screen of amazing clarity. On the sides there is a glowing light that is always on. The light can be programmed to monitor the weather, the stock market, incoming phone calls or any other function. The colour of the light changes according to the function you want it to do.The unique aspect of Ubik is that you don’t have to scroll through the text menu to get what you want… you just open the phone, and the function you want is instantly available. Best of all, the built in optical scanner ensures that you are the only one who can your Ubik!